WINTER COLD & FLU SEASON

As you can tell, I am getting snuggled in for winter. When my last water bill came it had a flyer in from our local health department talking about being prepared for a flu epidemic. It might be something you all want to think about: from my understanding it is not if this pandemic hits, it is when.

A good link to get you started is this government site or Ready America. Many of us have the misconception our government will take care of us and will have the situation under control... Katrina proved that to be untrue. We would like to think there will be plenty of flu shot doses for the population, but that may not be realistic. From reading about this new flu strain, it is impossible to plan ahead to make the flu serum because the strain mutates and is impossible to develope a serum to keep up with it.


MAKING A WINTER COLD/FLU KIT
You might want to put together a winter cold/flu basket for your family or friends. Besides the mixes for gifts as in my previous post, you might want to add and a few comfort items like a rice bag or heating pad, tissues (with a nice tissue holder), chicken soup (either canned or dried), cough drops, cold meds (if you know what the person uses), and be sure to add a bottle of hand sanitizer for a winter cold/flu survival kit.
If you want to make your own soup mix you might try: Chicken Rice Soup Mix from All Recipes. Another site for mixes and great ideas to get creative juices flowing is budget 101.
Recently I ran across a recipe for rehydration liquid for dehydration, which can be a real serious issue when you are sick. This also can be prepared as a mix.

It is important to learn how to wash your hands and teach your children also.

Homemade Hand Sanitizer: If you read the ingredients for hand sanitizers you will find it is mostly rubbing alcohol, water and petroleum jelly. Mix 2 parts rubbing alcohol, one part water and enough petroleum jelly to make it like a gel. Put in a pump bottle and use as the “store bought” sanitizer.

I believe many of us urban dwellers do not think about the possibilities of natural disasters, especially in my part of the country, where we have an occasional tornado, flood or a killer snowstorm. Many of our rural folks have a plan in effect to deal with power outages etc, but I wonder how many of us urban dwellers do. About.com has great ideas of emergency cooking preparedness. There are alot of people who do not have a well stocked pantry and supplies to last a few weeks. Could you survive for 2 weeks of what you have in your pantry? It does not hurt to be prepared, not just for flu, but for any natural disaster that might happen!

We need to get our heads out of the clouds and think of the realities of living in our modern world. I think one of my projects this fall will be to get better prepared.